United Irishmen, Society of, established in Belfast (by Neilson,
Tone, and
Russell) on 18 October 1791 and in Dublin (by Tone, Russell, and
Tandy), on 9 November, with smaller clubs in other centres. The membership of the Belfast society was Presbyterian and predominantly middle class; that of the Dublin society, roughly equally divided between Protestant and Catholic, was middle class with a sprinkling of gentry and aristocracy. The society's ideology combined the new radicalism inspired by the
American and
French Revolutions with the older traditions of British advanced
Whig or
commonwealth doctrine, and Irish
patriotism. Its main aims were
parliamentary reform and the removal of English control of Irish affairs. It was not until 1794, however, that the Dublin society defined reform in terms of indirect elections by universal male suffrage, and the early United Irishmen also stopped short of overt separatism or
republicanism. The society's most distinctive commitment was to a union of Irishmen of all denominations, though here too some Protestant members were privately uneasy at the prospect of full
Catholic emancipation.
The United Irishmen initially operated as a radical club, disseminating propaganda through the
Northern Star and other publications, and seeking to act as a radicalizing influence within larger bodies, notably the
Volunteers. During 1793 the Gunpowder Act and
Convention Act curtailed Volunteering, while prosecutions silenced leading radicals like Hamilton
Rowan. In May 1794, following the arrest of William
Jackson, the Dublin society was suppressed. United Irish leaders were later to blame these repressive measures for driving them to revolution. Recent research suggests that the effect was rather to advance a conspiratorial element already present, particularly within the Ulster movement, which now reorganized itself as a secret, oath‐bound organization geared for armed insurrection. The new clandestine structures, formalized in a revised constitution adopted on 10 May 1795, were extended to Dublin from the summer of 1796 and from there to surrounding counties. Meanwhile Tone had arrived in France in February 1796 to seek military support, and the
Hoche expedition of December dramatically boosted recruitment and morale. By February 1798 the society claimed over 280,000 active members. This expansion, along with the increasingly close alliance with the
Defenders, inevitably widened the gulf between the ideas of leaders and followers, as the goal of a democratic republic was reinforced, if not displaced, by ideas of a radical social transformation, and even of a settling of accounts with ‘heretic’ Protestants.
During 1797 the campaign of determined counter‐insurgency directed by General
Lake severely weakened the United Irish organization in its Ulster heartland. In spring 1798 the focus of repression moved to the counties round Dublin. Lord Edward
FitzGerald, Arthur
O'Connor, and other United Irish leaders advocated immediate insurrection, but were opposed by moderates led by
Emmet and W. J. MacNevin. The arrest of most members of the Leinster Directory on 12 March allowed Lord Edward, the Sheares brothers, and Neilson to frame plans for a rising. However, they too were in custody by 23 May, and it remains unclear how far the eventual insurrection of 1798 was centrally co‐ordinated.
A new United Irish organization, more tightly knit than its predecessor, appeared quite quickly after 1798, but collapsed following Robert Emmet's insurrection of 1803, although in France United Irish representatives remained active up to the fall of Napoleon.
Bibliography
Curtin, Nancy , The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin 1791–1798 (1994)
